Washington State Mall Shooter Highlights the Utter Futility of Gun Control

“According to court records, the gunman who killed 5 people in Washington State had been banned from owning a gun several months previously due to several domestic violence claims,” westernjournalism.com reports . . .

On Friday night, Arcan Cetin, 20, went into a Macy’s in the Cascade Mall in Burlington, north of Seattle. He shot and killed three women, a teenage girl and one man. After the shooting, Cetin left his rifle on top of a cosmetics counter and left the mall, court documents said. In the wake of the attack, many have called for an increase in gun regulation.

Wait? What?

Despite the fact that a court order banning Arcan Cetin from keeping or bearing arms failed to stop the Mall shooter from shooting and killing his victims, gun control advocates are using the crime to lobby for an initiative making it easier to generate gun ban court orders. Check this from seattletimes.com:

The memorials of the victims of Friday night’s mall shooting will begin soon — history repeating itself. Take a moment and read about the lives lost — from the “perfect child” killed at age 16 to the 95-year-old woman killed alongside her own daughter.

What if they were you? Your loved one? What will you do to stop the next tragedy?

The first bit of the Op Ed — asking readers to support a bill that would not have stopped the Macy’s murderer — is the usual gun control argument taken to it’s logical extreme. “Even if it doesn’t save one life . . .” pass Initiative 1491!

Just for perspective, let’s take another look at the circumstances surrounding the Macy’s shooting, this time from our good friends at The Trace:

A young man who fatally shot five people in a Washington state mall last Friday was reportedly turned away from a gun store hours before his rampage. The gunman inquired about “.45s and stuff” and asked how he could buy a firearm without going through a background check, clerk Aaron Wilson told a local television station. “No matter what, I wasn’t willing to sell to this man.” The gunman stole the .22 caliber Ruger rifle and 25-round magazine that he used in the killings from his stepfather.

Now about that Initiative . . .

1491 is Washington State’s version of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order. The Evergreen State’s “extreme risk protection order” would give family members, dating partners and anyone who’s lived with a gun owner for any amount of time during the year previous then power to secure a court order mandating immediate confiscation of the respondent’s firearms.

The “ERPO” would be issued ex parte. The first thing the respondent will know about the firearms confiscation order: a knock on the door from their local constabulary. The respondent can only respond to the accusations triggering the confiscation order after their guns are removed, at a hearing held within the next 14 days.

Hello? If someone poses a demonstrable danger to themselves or innocent life, it’s not the guns that need removing. They should be removed from society — after receiving their Constitutional right to due process. If society choose to go all “pre-crime” instead, it’s only a matter of time before thousands maybe even millions of American receive this notice (from 1491):

“To the subject of this protection order: This order will last until the date and time noted above. If you have not done so already, you must surrender to the (insert name of local law enforcement agency) all firearms in your custody, control, or possession and any concealed pistol license issued to you under RCW 9.41.070 immediately. You may not have in your custody or control, purchase, possess, receive, or attempt to purchase or receive, a firearm while this order is in effect. You have the right to request one hearing to terminate this order every twelve-month period that this order is in effect, starting from the date of this order and continuing through any renewals. You may seek the advice of an attorney as to any matter connected with this order.”

Scary stuff, no?

comments

I live alone…except for my dogs and you know what, I’m damn glad!
If the AG here in Washington is successful with a magazine limit or some ignorant AWB, I may move just across the border into Idaho and Washington State can kiss my ass.

Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong? You don’t, do you? Being wrong just makes you want to buy more ammo. You’ve got lots of ammo, don’t you?
KING 5 learned Thursday that Arcan Cetin, the 20-year-old who killed five people at Cascade Mall on Sept. 23, is in fact a U.S. citizen.

..so somehow these gun control laws are supposed to prevent a non-U.S.-citizen who managed to illegally vote in multiple elections and was already legally prohibited from possessing firearms in the first place from getting access to a gun (Ruger 10/22 in .22 LR, from the sounds of it) that would never have been banned or restricted under any of the proposed “assault weapon” or similar laws anyway. This is what passes for “common sense” these days, apparently.

You are correct. I had two points, one being that these restraining orders prohibiting gun possession would make a person rather unhappy and I’m glad that I live alone.
The other point is the Washington State Attorney General has come out in favor on a magazine limit and AWB.

I will say this, should any of those become law, I will disobey them. I live in a gun friendly county with a gun friendly sheriff and my state representative is EXTREMELY active in protecting 2A rights so, the AG can KMA

SCOTUS be damned, read the Second Amendment. There is no Constitutional, and therefore no LEGAL way to prohibit from possessing firearms. Whether or not persons in the country (legally), but not citizens (the people) should be restricted from possessing firearms, and to what extent, that is another discussion entirely. Prior to the 20th century I do not believe this was an issue. Even visitors and tourists have the right to self defense.

I am an absolutist. The Second Amendment means exactly what it says, in plain English, and for reasons well thought out, discussed and debated by the first Congress. The solution to a potential problem is not to pretend there is an “, except…” anywhere in the 2A, but to be prepared to deal summarily with ANYONE who uses a firearm, or any arm, with ill or criminal intent at the time and on the spot. In communities or societies where such response was known and expected the incidence of stupid behavior, and especially stupid domestic abuse behavior, would decline dramatically. IMO.

Why do I get the feeling that an awful lot of people who have fled to Washington to avoid overbearing government in California are now attempting to make “The Evergreen State” the same sort of fascist hell-hole?

Yes, a lot of awful people, mostly in the Puget Sound region. This place was practically a gun owners paradise when I moved here 5 years ago, and I came from Florida.

Now thanks to some elitist billionaires that know what’s best for us and a bunch of moronic progressives we have the worst so called “universal background check” law in the nation. Just don’t ever touch anyone else’s gun and you will be OK (I think). If I594 becomes the national model, we are well and truly fscked.

Umm, try again. He already had a restraining order prohibiting him from possessing firearms–and there is no suggestion that he kept any that he had prior to the order. Instead, as the article states, he stole this firearm from his stepfather when his efforts to buy one without a background check failed.

This initiative actually seems like it could help someone commit murder if it’s not that well investigated. The way it sounds, if you want to murder a gun owner, you need merely accuse them of being dangerously unstable then have the police render them helpless.

I guess realistically, if you wanted to murder a family member, it would be smarter to steal their gun. Still, it’s not unheard of for someone to have a crazy brother, uncle, or sister that would want to kill them.

All of these pushes for blatantly unconstitutional gun control schemes seems to me to be in the hopes that Hillary will be president and pack SCOTUS with liberal justices who will let these laws stand.

If Congress wanted (which I doubt) to pass a really useful piece of legislation they should make it a requirement that every candidate for public office must first sit through a comprehensive course on The Constitution of the United States of America, including the Federalist Papers, and receive a final grade of B or higher.

Second most useful piece of legislation would be that campaign contributions, if limited in dollar amount per person, also applied to the candidates themselves. No candidate should be able to buy an election by using more of his/her own personal assets in the campaign than were allowed to be donated by any other individual contributor.

Local cops coming to my door, unannounced, to confiscate my firearms, with no prior court proceedings that I was even advised of, much less invited to? I do not see how anything good could come of that. I suspect some local cops and a lot of law abiding citizens would needlessly die as a result, if anyone takes this seriously. If I were a local cop, I would never be able to find the person in question, although I might accidentally drop him a note advising him of what was going on. This is not moving in a smart direction.

We have the same laws here in Connecticut; an estranged husband killed his MIL and Wife… recently they passed a law regarding guns and ex parte restraining orders…. someone motivated to kill, will. All the laws they passed after Sandy Hook will not stop a homocidal maniac… gun laws only affect the law abiding citizen… gun control it is not about guns it’s about CONTROL

As a gun owner, concealed handgun licensee, and sport/target shooter, I find a story like this–as well as the response from our side–worrisome. Of course we must oppose stupid new laws. However, if we don’t offer alternatives, we could end up like Australia. “OK, you can’t keep your guns out of the hands of criminals? Then the only guns you may own must be secured at a government shooting range.” Am I the only one who doesn’t see that coming?

I think we need to look at each shooting and, through some organization like NRA, be prepared to suggest actions which might have prevented the event. I know in many cases, nothing would work. In many others, the answer might be mandatory minimum prison terms for crimes committed by someone with a gun. Maybe mandatory additional ten years added to any sentence, if a gun was used. No plea bargain. No parole. No time off. In other cases, we might even need to get behind some Democrat proposal.

In this most recent mall murder, the perp couldn’t get a gun legally. So that law worked. However he stole a rifle from his stepfather. So how was that possible, and how could it have been prevented? My guns are always in one of two places: on my person or in my safe. Was it too easy for the perp to get his stepfather’s gun? Sounds like it. I hate to suggest new laws, but if you leave a gun loose for anyone to take–even a burglar–then maybe you have some responsibility for what happens when your gun is stolen. The Sheriff of Harris County Texas left his service pistol on a table in his house, with no alarm and no one home. It was stolen by a burglar. A lot of people though Sheriff Garcia was irresponsible. I did. He ran for Houston mayor and didn’t make the runoff.

What you say makes some sense. However, the law you would get would resemble those being proposed/passed in places like SF where all guns must be unloaded, locked and stored when not on your person. So much for the “night stand gun” while you sleep! You preach being reasonable with these people who never return your reasonableness. I agree that gun crime should carry severe and non-negotiable sentences but disagree with you on attempting to work with the other side. They always take advantage of cooperation to pass more draconian laws. The other question I want these clowns to answer is how did this green-card holder register and vote in 3 elections, including this year’s Democrat Presidential primary?

OK,
Am I also responsible if someone breaks in and steals my unsecured butcher knife? How about my chainsaw?
Or maybe my unsecured can of gas. Do you see where I’m going with this? Don’t be an *sshat! Blame the only one who is to blame- the thieving shooter! No Laws Can or Will change what he or someone else intent on doing harm will stop them. Simple fact is to remove from society by force if necessary these scum that I hate to call humans. Carry all day every day to hopefully not end up like the 5 innocents that were murdered by this POS!

That stepfather was already himself previously the victim of assault by this killer and drunk. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed, too.

Given that personal experience, he was too stupid not to carry a gun, not to keep the others locked up, and to boot this punk out of his house. What the hell difference would a mandatory safe storage law or any other law do to protect someone so stupid?

Same as up in CT with Sandy Hook. That killer was street rat crazy and yet, the mother still let him live in the house and still made firearms available. She paid with her life. She didn’t even see that coming. How would she have been dissuaded from those decisions by some law, if the prospect of losing her life didn’t even register?

You’re smart enough to know better, but you, too, are falling into the “we have to do SOMETHING!” trap.

You can NEVER pass enough laws to cover every possible situation and any attempt to do so will simply bring out the lawyers to parse the language and find the details that you missed. Second result – totalitarian government.

And even in totalitarian states (as in countries) such as Nazi Germany, occupied countries during WW II, Soviet Russia, and the gun control utopias of Japan and Australia and England PEOPLE STILL COMMIT CRIMES OF VIOLENCE.

The solution is not to pass more useless laws, it is to educate people that they are personally responsible for their own safety and that of their family and community. The way you recognize a bad guy is that he’s the one pointing a gun at you with criminal intent. The way you eliminate bad guys is that when this happens there are more guns pointing back at him IMMEDIATELY.

“Hello? If someone poses a demonstrable danger to themselves or innocent life, it’s not the guns that need removing. They should be removed from society — after receiving their Constitutional right to due process.”

Say what? I guess you’ve never heard of an involuntary commitment order, probably available in all states, by which a police officer can take a person into custody and take him or her to a mental health facility for evaluation for a specified period of time (3 days here in California, I’ve heard as long as 10 days in other states) upon an affidavit stating that the officer believes the subject to be a threat of harm to himself or others. If that temporary hold is turned into an involuntary commitment for treatment, there go one’s gun rights—for life. There is no due process until after it has been determined by the facility that the subject should be restrained involuntarily.

in college i lived across from a woman who’s husband was a LEO. he did this to her wrongfully. she was no threat to anybody. they argued a good bit and were going through a separation. all of her rights were infringed upon based solely on the fact that he was able to have her committed because he was/is a police officer. what you suggest is a huge violation of our constitutional rights

You cannot stop criminals from getting/having guns; problem too big. You can prevent the next potential criminal. Crime prevention used to be a universal goal in this country. Somewhere we switched to aftermath clean-up.

The proposed law will do nothing to stop gangs, thieves, other already known bad guys from crimes with a gun. But if a law might, could, maybe, possibly, potentially, stop one person from getting a gun and becoming a criminal, that one life is worth it. But even if that that doesn’t work, we as a society are trying. If we don’t try, we don’t do. And if we don’t do, what are we?

The problem with these kinds of “gun restraining orders” is that they don’t make sense. If the person in question really is so dangerously unstable that they can’t be trusted with a gun, and you send cops to take their gun(s) away from them, what do you think the likely outcome is?

A) The dangerously unstable person will take it as a wake-up call to re-assess their life choices, acknowledge that they are mentally ill, and seek competent professional help and go on to live a happy, productive life.

B) The dangerously unstable person will see the taking of his property by government agents as a provocation, and will seek revenge on the person who filed the order (or anyone else they define as an outlet for their rage, since we’re talking about a mentally ill person here) and attempt to commit violence against that person. Keep in mind, all we’ve done is take whatever guns the dangerous person has voluntarily relinquished to the police – he may have kept one or more hidden, or may seek to buy one illegally, or may use a knife, a piece of rebar, his car, a baseball bat, a can of gasoline, or his bare hands to lash out.

If someone is so dangerous they can’t be trusted to own a gun, that person should be locked up, away from the infinite number of ways that a person can cause mayhem and death. Taking away a few guns does absolutely nothing to defuse the allegedly dangerous situation, and in many cases will likely trigger a violent response. Guns aren’t the only way to maim and kill. They’re not even the most efficient tool for that job.

Good observations. The “fix” would be to temporarily arrest and jail such a dangerous person until they can prove (hearing within 10 calendar days) they do not present a threat of physical violence against self, or others. Lock up the guns AND the person. Nice.

I need help understanding this. Did I read this correct: (para) the shooter used a Ruger (10/22) and a 25 round magazine to commit the crime? I was under the impression that 22 LR was dangerous yet reliably NON-lethal round.

The 22lr has notoriously deficient STOPPING power on targets larger than you average pomeranian or feral cat, however they are most definitely NOT non-lethal. A head shot will kill you pretty thoroughly, hence the supposed choice of professional hit-men to place one or two 22lr rounds in the back of your head. A 22lr hit to any major blood vessel or to the heart, not promptly treated by competent medical professionals, will most definitely prove lethal, it just takes longer than a larger caliber and does not prevent the victim from continuing to act while they bleed out. I have seen a video where a Stop & Rob clerk shot in the heart by a 22lr assisted responding LEOs for several minutes in identifying and capturing the robber before the clerk sat down on the curb and died.

On gun control : This video below was posted at the BREITBART . com comments section with the story about a Manville , NJ student suspended for a pro-gun report ( assigned by a teacher ) . The school wanted the student to submit to a 5 hour psych. evaluation. His parents said NO ! ( They then got a visit by child welfare as harassment )

While I can’t prove its authenticity , it’s a VERY good production , worthy of an NRA / GOA commercial. You decide.

Gun control is not futile. It allows the G to create more felons, which is the whole point of gun control.

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

The real problem is that we so automatically turn to government to solve problems. We have somehow forgotten that there are other institutions in society which can act, and often better.

For example, I knew a pastor (Lutheran) who stepped into a situation where a family’s kids were worried their parents might get violent with each other. He persuaded them that given how angry with each other they’d been getting, they should put items capable of easily doing harm into the hands of someone else they trusted, plus spend some time apart.

We’ve let too much power fall into the hands of government, and in turn government has strangled the ability of other institutions to intervene, though — under Washington’s laws (and now Oregon’s), that pastor would not be allowed to remove guns etc. from the house even with the family’s permission!